Drucker in the Harvard Business Review, 1963-1989
Collected HBR articles
Summary
This volume collects Peter Drucker's articles published in the Harvard Business Review across twenty-six years.
The pieces include several that shaped management practice. Managing for Business Effectiveness argues that resources and effort should be concentrated on opportunities rather than distributed across problems, that a small number of products and customers generate most results while a large number generate most costs, and that managers should systematically abandon what no longer produces. The Discipline of Innovation identifies seven sources entrepreneurs should examine systematically: unexpected successes and failures, incongruities between what is and what should be, process needs, changes in industry or market structure, demographic change, changes in perception, and new knowledge, and argues that new knowledge is the least reliable source despite being the most celebrated. The Theory of the Business argues that organisations operate on assumptions that were once valid and eventually are not, and that successful company failure is nearly always the obsolescence of those assumptions.
Other pieces cover what business can learn from non-profits, the coming of the new organisation and its implications for management layers, the information executives need, the productivity of knowledge and service work, and the management of the corporation's relationship with society.
Drucker's characteristic method is throughout: he observes, he asserts, and he asks better questions than most people answer. There is no research and no evidence beyond example. The articles span twenty-six years, so some address conditions that have changed while others read as if written recently. This collection overlaps substantially with Classic Drucker, also in this reference.
Key takeaways 7
- A small number of products and customers generate most results while a large number generate most costs.
- Resources should be concentrated on opportunities rather than distributed across problems, which is where most management effort goes.
- Systematic abandonment of what no longer produces results is a required practice rather than an occasional review.
- Innovation should be pursued by examining seven specific sources of change rather than by waiting for inspiration.
- New knowledge is the least reliable source of successful innovation despite being the most celebrated.
- Organisations operate on assumptions that were once valid, and the failure of successful companies is nearly always their obsolescence.
- Reducing management layers changes what information reaches the top and what the remaining managers actually do.
Who should read it
Executives who want Drucker's Harvard Business Review articles in one volume, overlapping substantially with other Drucker collections.
About Peter F. Drucker
Management writer and consultant; professor at Bennington, NYU and Claremont Graduate University
He invented management as a field of study, and The Practice of Management and The Effective Executive remain the primary sources every later writer builds on.
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